Pham shrugged. "It was good luck indeed. But it proved my point, Sura! We both know that a collapse like this can be the deadliest—and we saved them."

What he could see of Sura's body was clothed in a quilted business suit that could not disguise the gauntness of her limbs. But her mind and will remained, sustained by the medical unit in her chair. Sura's shake of the head was as forceful and almost as natural as when she'd been a young woman. "Saved them? You made a difference certainly, but billions still died. Be honest, Pham. It took a thousand years for us to set up this meeting. It's not the sort of thing that can be done every time some civilization goes down the toilet. And without the Maresk die-off, even your five thousand ships would not have been enough. The whole system would be at the edge of its carrying capacity, with still greater disasters in the near future."

All that had occurred to Pham; he had argued against variants of the point for Msecs before the Meeting. "But Namqem is the hardest rescue we could possibly face, Sura. An old civilization, entrenched, a civilization exploiting every solar-system resource. We would have had a much easier time with a world threatened with bio-plague or even a totalitarian religion."

Sura was shaking her head. Even now she ignored what Pham set before her. "No. In most cases, you can make a difference, but more often than not it will be like Canberra—a small difference for the better, and written in Trader blood. You're right: Without the fleet of fleets, civilization would have died here in Namqem system. But some people would have survived on Namqem world; some of the asteroid-belt urbs might have survived. The old story would have been repeated, and someday there would be civilization here again, even if by external colonization. You have bridged that abyss, and billions are rightly grateful...but it will take years of careful management to bring this system back. Maybe we here"—her hand twitched in the direction of the Meeting Hall—"can do that, and maybe not. But I know that we can't do it for the universe and for all time." Sura did something, and her chairchuff 'd to a halt.

She turned, extended her arms to touch Pham's shoulders. And suddenly Pham had the strangest feeling, almost a kinesthetic memory, of looking up into her face and feeling her hands on his shoulders. It was a memory from before they were partners, before they were lovers. A memory from their earliest time on theReprise: Sura Vinh, the young woman, serious. There were times when she'd gotten so angry with little Pham Nuwen. There were times when she'd reached out to grab his shoulders, tried to hold him still long enough to make him understand what his young barbarian mind chose to ignore. "Son, don't you see? We span all Human Space, but we can't manage whole civilizations. You'd need a race of loving slaves to do it. And we Qeng Ho will never be that."

Pham forced himself to look back into Sura's eyes. She had argued this since the beginning, and never wavered.I should have known it would cometo this someday. So now she would lose, and Pham could do nothing to help her. "I'm sorry Sura. When you give your speech, you can say this to a million people. Many of them will believe. And then we'll allvote. And—" And from what he had seen in the Great Hall, and what he saw in Sura Vinh's eyes...for the first time, Phamknew that he had won.

Sura turned away, and her artificial voice was soft. "No. I won't be giving that speech. Elections? Funny that you should be depending on them now....We've heard how you ended the Strentmannian Pogrom."

The change in topic was absurd, but the comment touched a nerve. "I was down to one ship, Sura. What would you have done?"I saved theirdamn civilization, the part that wasn't monstrous.

Sura raised her hand. "I'm sorry....Pham, you are just too lucky, too good." She seemed almost to be talking to herself now. "For almost a thousand years, you and I have worked to make this meeting. It was always a sham, but along the way, we created a trading culture that may last as long as your optimistic dreams. And I always knew that in the end, when we were all face-to-face in a Grand Meeting, common sense would prevail." She shook her head, and a smile quavered. "But I never imagined that luck would give you the Namqem debacle so perfectly timed—or that you would master it like magic. Pham, if we follow your way, we'll likely have disaster here in Namqem within a decade. In a few centuries, the Qeng Ho will fragment into a dozen dozen conflicting structures that all think themselves ‘interstellar governances.' And the dream we shared will be destroyed.

"You're right, Pham. You might win the election...and that's why there won't be one, at least not the kind you think."

The words didn't register for a moment. Pham Nuwen had been exposed to treachery a hundred times. The sense for it was burned into him before he'd ever seen a starship. But...Sura? Sura was the only one he could always trust, his savior, his lover, his best friend, the one he'd schemed with for a lifetime. And now—

Pham looked around the room, his mind undergoing a change-of-ground more profound than any in his life. Besides Sura, there were Sura's aides, six of them. There were also Ratko and Butra and Qo. Of his own assistants—there was only Sammy Park. Sammy stood a little off to the side; he looked sick.

Finally, he looked back at Sura. "I don't understand...but whatever the game, there's no way you can change the election. A million people heard me."

Sura sighed. "They heard you, and you might have a bare majority in a fair election. But many you think supported you...are really with me."

She hesitated, and Pham looked again at his three children. Ratko avoided his gaze, but Butra and Qo looked back with grim steadiness. "We never wanted to hurt you, Papa," Ratko said, finally looking at him. "We love you. This whole charade of a meeting was supposed to show you that the Qeng Ho could not be what you wished. But it didn't go the way we expected—"

Ratko's words didn't matter. It was the look on his children's faces. It was the same closed stoniness of Pham's brothers and sisters, one Canberra morning. And all the love in between...a charade?

He looked back at Sura. "So how do you propose to win? With the sudden, accidental death of half a million people? Or just the selective assassination of thirty thousand hard-core Nuwenists? It won't work, Sura. There are too many good people out there. Maybe you can win this day, but the word will remain, and sooner or later, you'll have your civil war."

Sura shook her head. "We're not killing anyone, Pham. And the word won't go out, at least not widely. Your speech will be remembered by those in the hall, but their recorders—most are using our information utilities. Our free hospitality, remember? Ultimately your speech will be polished into something...safer."

Sura continued, "Over the next twenty Ksec, you will be in special meeting with your opposition. Coming out of that you will announce a compromise: The Qeng Ho will put a much greater effort into our network information services, the sort of thing that can help rebuild civilizations. But you will withdraw your notion of interstellar governance, convinced by the arguments of the rest of us."

A charade. "You could fake that. But afterwards, you'll still have to kill a lot of people."

"No. You will announce your new goal, an expedition to the far side of Human Space. It will be clear that this is partly out of bitterness, but you will wish us well. Your far fleet is almost ready, Pham, about twenty degrees back along the Gap. We have equipped it honestly and well. Your fleet's automation is unusually good, far more expensive than what would be profitable. You won't need a continuous Watch, and the first wake-up will be centuries from now."